California Voters Assent to Newsom Redistricting Gambit

Voters in California on Tuesday approved Proposition 50, Governor Gavin Newsom’s initiative to counter Republican redistricting efforts in Texas and elsewhere. The proposition will temporarily bypass California’s independent redistricting commission and hand over redistricting authority to the Democrat-controlled state legislature. The resulting map will likely give California Democrats five of the current Republican House delegation’s nine seats.

While Californians expressed their support for the independent redistricting committee in exit polls, their dislike of President Donald Trump and Republican redistricting efforts across the country—which Trump has supported as a means of winning the 2028 midterm elections—ended up being the more important consideration. Republicans have drawn new districts or are currently considering redistricting in Texas, Ohio, Missouri, North Carolina, Indiana, and Florida. Democrats have responded with their own redistricting efforts, including Proposition 50 in California and a redistricting initiative in Virginia.

The race was called by the Associated Press almost as soon as election results began to be tallied, as it became clear that the proposition would pass with an overwhelming majority. At time of writing, Proposition 50 was approved by 64 percent of voters and rejected by just 36 percent, with 71 percent of votes counted.

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